Bill,

I think you may have misunderstood my point. I am most certainly not proposing the water should be pushed whatsoever. I very much prefer the pull method which involve working with native fertility ... especially with this lake because it will be frozen for an extended period each year. But also because increasing carrying capacity only makes controlling numbers that much harder in what is a substantial body of water.

As for speculating about standing weights and predator proportions, yes, just hypothetical and I don't mean to argue the standing weights are accurate. I think the community structure study is a good idea and that it will allow for better planning with regard to population management. I guess my main focus with it was to show there is a path. Even if the food limited LMB carrying capacity is less than or more than that the numbers that need to be culled appear manageable. This is something that is corroborated by the prior owners who very successfully managed a trophy fishery whether they possessed (or not) an intimate knowledge of community structure, standing weights, and a detailed harvest plan. It is certainly possible that having this knowledge would have changed how they harvested and this could have substantially improved the trophy opportunities. That said, the OP should probably expect to exceed that achieved by prior owners with this help and knowledge.


It isn't what we don't know that gives us trouble, it's what we know that ain't so - Will Rogers